Odd Twin Cities — The Highway Edition

A Photo Tour Of Odd, Unusual, And
WeirdSites On Twin Cities Area Highways

Introduction

Here are a collection of odd, unusual, and interesting
locations along the highways of the Minneapolis and Saint Paul metro area that
I have stumbled over in the past 20 years since I have moved to the Twin
Cities. If you know of other similar stories or things in the area that are
just plain odd, please let me know.

Note—click on each photo to see the full size image.

If you look closely, you will see that the street lights in this photo
are abnormally short. Some are attached directly to the top of the traffic
lights, while others are barely taller than the traffic that flows through
this area where MN-62 and MN-55 meet. The reason for the short lights
is that runway 4/22 was extended by 2700 feet northeast towards this
intersection. At the same time, the existing ground level intersection
was converted to be a freeway interchange. In addition, the new light
rail system crosses this intersection with a flyover bridge. So, the
combination of traffic higher up in the air and lower flying aircraft
lead to the installation of short street lamps.

This small patch of weeds is located just north of MN-62 and west of
MN-55 (near the airport). Why is this area fenced off? And why
is it not mowed like the rest of the grass in the area? Well, it turns
out that this is the last patch of virgin prairie grass left in the
7 county metro area. It has never been plowed or otherwise disturbed.
The fence is there to keep people out. At one time, the Crosstown
freeway was actually diverted from its planned course as to not
disturb this land. A new interchange was built between MN-62 and
MN-55 which allowed MN-62 to built much straighter, and still not
require any of the virgin prairie land.

Heading either direction on I-94 in Saint Paul just west of Snelling Ave,
there is what appears to be a pedestrian walkway crossing the freeway.
That wouldn't be too much of a surprise since there are a number of such
walkways over nearly every twin cities freeway.

If you look closely, you will see a few odd things about this walkway.
First off, it looks like the railroad bridge is sitting right on the
walkway, so there is no way to walk across this structure. Second, the
ends of the walkway are at a sheer concrete wall, so there is no way to
walk onto the walkway. Third, the hand rails are only about a foot tall,
far too short for humans. Finally, there are no tracks in snow visible
in the 3rd picture.

One theory is that this was a former walkway, but it was taken out of
service when the railroad bridge was built. Good theory, but it turns
out that this rail corridor far predates the freeway. Some of the more
creative natives claim that this is a passageway between parallel
universes. The explanation that is most likely to be correct is that this is
a carrier for electrical cables across the freeway, and it has been
set-up this way since it was built. Or maybe it is for very small
sized wildlife to cross the freeway. We may never know.

While on the subject of walkways to nowhere, another such walkway has
recently appeared over I-494 in Bloomington near the MSP Airport. This
walkway is odd in that it doesn't have ramps or steps leading up to either
end of the walkway. Plus it has a vertical jump in the middle—that
isn't going to work very well for people in wheelchairs.

As it turns out, this is a structure for supporting the ILS (instrument
landing system) antennas for the new north-south runway. The new runway
ends very close to the north side of the I-494 freeway just east of the
24th Ave interchange. In fact, a number of buildings on the south side
of I-494 had to be torn down because they were in the flight path. This
includes the Sheraton Hotel, Super America gas station, the Doubletree
Hotel, and the Mall Of America Grand Hotel. In fact, the Doubletree was
only two years old when it was demolished.

These curious boxes mounted on a pedestrian overpass over I-35W at 73rd
Avenue in Richfield has been a topic of discussion by Roads Scholars for
many years. They have been installed at this location for as long as I
can remember, at least since the late 1980s. These boxes have a clear
window, behind which appears to sit a camera. There are six total, three
pointed north, and three pointed south on the opposite side of the bridge.
The sensors only cover the southbound lanes, and only the right two lanes.
An aerial photo shows that there are lines painted across the highway,
three on each side of the bridge.

There is a debate whether or not this system is still in use. MN-DOT did
not add more sensors to cover the additional traffic lane that was built
in the early 2000s. At the same time, they did replace the lines across
the highway when new pavement was installed.

The best guess is that this is an early traffic speed sensor. It likely
was experimental since I have only found one in the metro area. MN-DOT
does measure traffic flows in real time, and does have traffic cameras
deployed, but those systems do not use this hardware. Anyone have any
more details about what these things are?

Located on I-35W just north of the Mississippi River crossing, we
see BGS (big green signs) for Exit 19 and Exit 21. So, hey, what
happened to Exit 20? There are a number of partially constructed
ramps and places where bridges appear to be planned. Did Exit 20
ever exist? Was Exit 20 abducted by aliens?

The answer is that Exit
20 was to be the now canceled Interstate I-335 north loop around
downtown Minneapolis. The project went so far as to have over 90
percent of the right of way purchased and cleared, and construction
actually began here on I-35W. If you drive through the area, you
can still see some of the ghost ramps.

Community opposition lead to I-335 being canceled. Some of the
land has since been turned over to housing developers, while other
land is sitting vacant or
used as parks. For many years, the cancellation of I-335 was hailed
as the first victory against highways. But with pressure mounting
on the Lowry Tunnel and huge traffic delays, many people are starting
to think that I-335 should have been built after all.

Note—road scholar Adam ‘Froggie’ Froehlig wrote to
tell me that my description is all wet. First off, Minnesota freeway
exits are numbered by mile, not by sequence. There is no need for an
exit 20 just because there is exit 19 and exit 21. Exit 20 was, however,
planned for I-335. In addition, the way I-335 was designed, it is
unlikely that it would have helped overall traffic flow in the downtown
area, especially not for the Lowry Tunnel. As of 2007, MN-DOT is
considering using the ghost ramps to build an interchange for Johnson
Street.

For some reason, every road project in the twin cities area has some
screwball problem. If it isn't right angle corners and lane drops,
it is ramp meters and silly speed limits. As far as that goes, I-35E
has it all. Called the "practice freeway" by the locals, it was held
up in court for many years. To get the project moving, MN-DOT agreed
to put a 45 MPH speed limit on the freeway.

That is one of the problems with our form of government—decisions by
a few can be imposed on the many. Now, everyone suffers because a few
nimbys were afraid to drive on 55 MPH roads. Studies have shown that
most people ignore speed limits and drive the speed where they are
comfortable. That is about 60 MPH on this road, and that is where most
people drive. Heavy patrolling by the State Patrol still only catches
about 1 in a 100,000 speeders.

If you think the 45 MPH freeway is bad, here is the 40 MPH freeway,
MN-55 (Hiawatha Ave) Freeway heading southeast out of downtown
Minneapolis. A ten year letter writing campaign recently resulted
in increasing this speed up from the unthinkable 35 MPH. Putting
a 35 MPH speed limit on an 8 lane freeway should be a criminal act,
and those that do it should be made to pay the price in the criminal
justice system.

The speed limit increase, which was opposed by the City of Minneapolis,
was somewhat of an anticlimax. The new light rail system has seriously
broken the traffic light system from Lake Street to the Minnehaha Tunnel.
The lights go red any time a train is in sight, and right combination of
trains can keep the lights red for up to five minutes at a time. MN-DOT
worked for months on the problem, then called in consultants. The verdict
is that little can be done given the train running so close to the highway.
Now I am sure that some people are wishing that the Hiawatha Freeway was
built after all.

And if you can have a 40 MPH freeway, why not have a freeway to nowhere?
This is the Ayd Mill Road freeway/expressway. It was built in a now
unused industrial and rail corridor in southern Saint Paul. It was to
have been a short-cut from I-35E to the Midway and University areas.
Local opposition resulted in the north end never being finished, and
the ramps on the south end were never opened. Mayor after mayor cowtowed
to the locals, until we recently got a mayor with a bit of cojones.

The idea was to open Ayd Mill Road, and try three different configurations.
Studies showed that Ayd Mill Road had a significant impact. It took cars
off of local streets, it reduced travel time, it reduced pollution, it
took traffic load off of I-35E, and most of all, it reduced noise in the
neighborhoods. The nimbys were horrified that everything they had predicted
turned out to be totally 100 percent wrong.

MN-DOT and the City of St Paul are now considering a number of alternatives
for a permanent configuration to Ayd Mill Road, including the connection
to I-94.

Here is the stop sign for no apparent reason on northbound Ayd Mill Road.
There is no cross street. There is no cross traffic. There is no place
for oncoming traffic to turn, either right or left. This stop sign has
absolutely no purpose, other than to make people stop. It serves no
traffic or highway purpose. All it does is punish people for using the
road.

In watching this stop sign for 15 minutes on a Friday afternoon,
I found that nearly every car slowed slightly and then ran the stop sign.
It is silly ideas like this that make otherwise normal lawful citizens
break a somewhat serious law on a regular basis. If people are trained
to ignore this stop sign, or roll through the stop sign, who knows where
else they will do the same thing? Perhaps the reason that so many people
are running red lights these days is that they have been trained to do so.

Road Scholar Greg Buchner suggests that this stop sign is to provide
a protected U-Turn for businesses and residents on Pascal Street to be
able to access Selby Ave. heading west. That is the best explanation
that I have heard so far.

If you like the stop sign for no apparent reason, here is the tunnel for
no apparent reason. The late 90's rebuild of the lower portion of MN-55
was highly controversial. In fact, it was held up in the courts for over
30 years. One lady was so upset about the project that she sat in a tree
for nearly a year.

One part of the design was to try to join the parks on both sides of the
road near the Minnehaha Creek. The idea was that the roadway could be
put underground, and a seamless park could be created. The problem,
however, is that the Minnehaha Creek is located at the south end of this
tunnel, and the tunnel could not go deeper than the high water level of
the creek. That determined the height of the roadway. The resulting
tunnel looks like a large one-story building, the park ended up
being a huge mound.

This tunnel is also an example of government budget magic. The light
rail system was expected to cost nearly a billion dollars. Knowing
that the public would probably not go for that, the planners worked to
move as much of the light rail work into other projects. That allowed
them to advertise the light rail cost at only $600-million. Here, the
light rail section of the tunnel should have been in the light rail
project budget. But instead, it was built as part of the MN-55 highway
project before the light rail was even given the final go-ahead.

The Irene Hixon Whitney Footbridge connects Loring Park with the
Walker Art Gallery. Irene Hixon Whitney is part of the Whitney family
that is heir to the Northern States Power fortune. Whitney was honored
with this bridge based on her lifetime of giving to the arts community.

The bridge was designed in 1985 by Siah Armagani, and built in 1988.
It is 379 feet long and crosses 16 lanes of traffic. It is the largest
piece of public artwork in the state. What is unusual about the bridge
is that it is made up of three different types of bridges...the blue
section is an arch, the yellow section is a suspension bridge, and the
walkway itself is a through truss.

The Twin Cities recently saw the return of light rail to the metro area.
What few people remember is that the Twin Cities once had an extensive
light rail system that consisted of trolley cars, cable cars, and
interurban rail, plus the Twin Cities were a major hub for numerous
passenger railroad lines.

When bus travel was introduced after World War II, the trolley system was
seen as old fashioned, something we didn't need when we were thinking
about sending men to the moon. The cars were burned and the rails were
ripped out with amazing speed. Almost nothing of the trolley era
survives, especially outside of the local transportation museum.

One artifact that did survive is the Selby Avenue Trolley Tunnel. The
tunnel was built to avoid a high hill on Selby Ave near the Saint Paul
Cathedral. The tunnel started on Selby west of the Cathedral Hill, and
the entrance was the center two lanes of traffic on Selby Ave. The
lanes simply dipped below the surface. The line emerged east of the
Cathedral in a cut that was dedicated to trolley traffic. The line
would have then entered Saint Paul along 7th Avenue. The line is cut
off today by I-35E, which is built in a trench just to the east of
this location. The tunnel is still intact, but both ends have been
closed off.

This is another item pointed out to me by Luke Farrell. This photo is
picture of the old Cedar Avenue Bridge in Bloomington. This was once
one of the major crossings of the Minnesota River. This five span truss
crosses a backwater area, and then there was a swing span over the main
channel. The swing span was removed when the new freeway bridge was
completed in the 1980s. This backwater bridge was left in place to access
the island in the middle of the river. The bridge continued to deteriorate
until it had to be closed to all traffic, including bicycles and pedestrian.
The signs on the bridge make that clear. What is odd, however, is that if
you look at the far end of the bridge. The other end has a number of
signs on it to keep people off of the bridge. Since this is an island,
and this bridge is the only way onto that island, why did that end of
the bridge have to be closed off an so much expense spent on all those
signs? Are they concerned that deer would use the bridge, or that people
would swim the river to try to use the bridge?

Update—here is yet another place that my explination falls apart.
When I first visited this site, the main river channel bicycle bride was
blocked off, so I assumed that there was no way to the south end of the
old Cedar Avenue Bridge. It turns out that the bicycle bridge was
closed for only a short period of time. The island in the middle of the
river turns out to be a popular place to hike, so it makes complete sense
that the south end of the bridge is blocked off. But it did look odd
when it was first pointed out to me.

Dakota County completed a new east-west highway across the county in the
late 1990s. It is named CSAH-46, for County State Aid Highway 46. The
highway passes though the U of M research farm, which is now called
U-More Park. Strange concrete objects are built along the south side
of the road, and if you look off into the trees, you can see other
concrete remains. These are some of the remains of the abandoned
Gopher Ordnance Works, a plant that was built during World War II to
supply a new type of smokeless gunpowder to the US Navy.

The plant was started in 1942. It was largely finished, and then was
not used for almost two years when WWII appeared like it would wrap up
in 1944. It turned out that powder was used at a more rapid rate at
the end of the war, so the plant was then rushed into operation. The peak
workforce during construction was 19,428 workers, and nearly 9,000 were
employed to run the factory. Once the war was over, the buildings were
torn down. The wood was salvaged and used on other military building
projects. The concrete foundations were abandoned in place, and the
land was turned over to the University of Minnesota. The remains have
sat all but forgotten in the 60 years since the war.

A dark chapter in this story is the land condemnation process where
the US Government paid farmers far less for their land than what it
was worth. Many farmers bought their land in the 1910s and 1920s when
prices were high, and the Government was offering 1930s depression
era values. The low land prices hit one farmer doubly hard. He had
bought his farm in Rosemont because the government had taken his previous
farm on the north side of Minneapolis to build the US Army Twin Cities
Ammunition Plant.

This device looks like an ordinary storm warning siren. It is, however, a
bit smaller than the typical storm warning or civil defense siren. As one
travels around the Twin Cities, you might notice two concentrations of these
devices. One such group is along I-94 near the Albertville Outlet Mall
just northwest of the cities. The other is along the Mississippi River
just northeast of Red Wing near the Treasure Island Casino. It turns out
that these are nuclear alert sirens that are posted around the two nuclear
power generator stations located in Minnesota. More than 100 of these
sirens cover a ten mile radius around the power plants at Monticello and
Prairie Island, standing ready to alert residents and travelers to tune
into local radio stations to receive news and instructions about any
event or emergency that might pose a danger to humans.